Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
