Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the