Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, 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 search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
