Things 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, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
