Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
