Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
