Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
