Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
