Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
