Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
