Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry 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 elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
