Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
