Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
