Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
