Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
