Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
