Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
