Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
