Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
