Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
