Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
