Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
