Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
