Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
