Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
