Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
