Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury 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 La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
