Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
