Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
