Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
