Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
