Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
