Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call 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
