Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
