Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
