Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
