Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
