Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
