Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
