Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the