Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
