Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
