Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
