Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
