Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old 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 series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
