Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
