Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
