Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
