Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's rule. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
