Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine 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 Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
