Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger 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 strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
