Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
