Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
