Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
