Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to open into other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
