Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
