Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
