Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original 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 sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
