Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
