Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
