Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell independence of thought, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
