Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
