Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
