Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen 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 accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature academics 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 toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
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 represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
