Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
