Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
