Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring 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". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real 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 animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
