Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
