Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
