Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
