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 appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
