Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
