Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
