Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
