Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
