Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
