Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
