Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst 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 Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
