Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
