Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
