Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
