Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
