Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
