Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the