Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
