Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
