Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
