Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
