Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
