Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
