Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
