Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
