Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
