Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
