Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible 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 authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
