Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
