Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
