Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled 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, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
