Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the point of the highly contested 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 the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
