Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
