Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
