Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's sky: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
