Tings are collapsing 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 slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified 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.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
