Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, her choices and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
