Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
