Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription 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.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
