Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
