Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
