Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such opening seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
