Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
