Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
