Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
