Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and return to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
