Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
