Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, her choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
