Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
