Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
