Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – 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 pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
