Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
