Things 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, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
