Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – 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 destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
