Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
