Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
