Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river 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 the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
