Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
