Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
