Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
