Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
