Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to open into alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
