Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
