Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, 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 go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
