Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike 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 the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the