Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
