Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
