Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
