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 appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
