Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
