Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
