Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
