Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
