Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
