Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
