Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering 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 church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
