Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original 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 prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
