Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest 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 prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
