Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
