Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
