Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
