Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
