Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that look to open into different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
