Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
