Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
