Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
