Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed 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 darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's air: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
