Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
