Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
