Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
