Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
