Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
