Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
