Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
