Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
