Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, 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 determined on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
