Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
