Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen 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 states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
