Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
