Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
