Things are unraveling 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 intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
