Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
