Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. A particular window seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
