Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
