Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
