Things are falling apart 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 charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
