Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
