Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
