Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
