Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
