Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
