Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
