Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
