Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
