Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
