Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles 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 heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
