Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
