Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
