Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
