Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
