Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
