Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
