Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
