Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the world's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and back to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
