Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
