Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
