Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
