Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
