Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
