Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
