Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
