Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
