Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
