Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
