Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
