Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
