Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element 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 durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars 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 first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
