Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
