Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
