Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
