Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's control. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
