Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates 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 back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
