Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering 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 governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
