Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
