Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
