Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
