Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
