Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
