Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
