Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby 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 tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
