Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
