Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
