Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
