Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
