Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the world's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
