Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
