Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – 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 pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
