Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
