Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
