Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
