Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
