Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
