Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
