Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
