Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
