Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
