Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
