Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
