Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
