Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
