Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
