Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
