Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
