Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
