Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
