Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
