Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
