Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
