Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine 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 its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the