Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
