Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
