Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
