Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
