Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
