Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
