Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
