Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell independence of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
