Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
