Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, her actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
