Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
