Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
