Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
