Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
