Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
