Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
