Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
