Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting 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 shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
