Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
