Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
