Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of thought, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
