Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
