Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, her choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
