Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, 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 poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
