Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
