🔗 Share this article

Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The book opens with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the