Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
