Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
