Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
