Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
