Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
