Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
