Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, 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 more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
