Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
