Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
