Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out 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 origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
