Tings are unraveling in the final volume 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 skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
