Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
