Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
