Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
