Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
