Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. One such window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
