Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
