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 seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
