Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
