Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
