Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
