Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
