Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old 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 The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
