Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
