Tings 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, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque 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 play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
