Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
