Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
