Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
