Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
