Tings are collapsing 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 charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
