Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
