Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
