Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
