Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors 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 infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell independence of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
