Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
