Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
