Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra 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 motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's sky: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
