Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
