Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the