Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
