Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
