Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
