Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
