Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
