Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods 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 Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
