Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
