Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
