Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division 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 depart in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
