Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
