Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
