🔗 Share this article

Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist 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 action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the