Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
