Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
