🔗 Share this article

Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's air: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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