Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
