Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel 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". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
