Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
