Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
