Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
