Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
