Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
