Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
