Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
