Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
