Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the church's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
