Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
