Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
