Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
