Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
