Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
