Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
