Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
