Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
