Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin 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 risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
