Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
