Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
