Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
