Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
