Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
