Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
