Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
