Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
