Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
