Things 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 charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
