Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
