Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of her 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 saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
