🔗 Share this article

Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the