Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
