Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
