Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy 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 origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
