Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
