Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
