Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
