Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
