Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's rule. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
