Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something 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 strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite 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, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
