Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
