Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
