Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
