Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
