Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating 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 resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, 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 prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
