Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
