Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
