Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
