Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
