Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
