Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
