Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
