Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
