Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
