Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
