Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
