Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
