Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
