Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
