Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
