Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
