Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
