Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar 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 gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
