Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
