Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
