Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
