Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
