Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry luxury 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 prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
