Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling 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". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
