Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
