Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
