Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
