Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling 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 pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
