Tings are unraveling in the last installment 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 energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
