Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
