Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
