Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
