Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
