Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
