Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
