Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
