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 intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original 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 distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and back to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
