Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
