Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
