Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
