Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
