Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman 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 deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the