Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the church's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
