Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
