Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first 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 mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
