Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
