Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the church's rule. A key character, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
