Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
