Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. One such opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
