Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
