Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen 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 gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
