Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
