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, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
