Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
