Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
