Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
