Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
