Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
