Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger 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 deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
