Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
