Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
