Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
