Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
