Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
