Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
