Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
