Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations 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 flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, 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 church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
