Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
