Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
