Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first 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 mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
