Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
