Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
