Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
