Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
