Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the church's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
