Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
