Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to open into other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
