Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
