Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
