Things 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. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
