Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
