Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
