Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
