Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
