Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
