Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
