Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
