🔗 Share this article

Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story starts with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the