Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
