Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl 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 Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger 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 aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved 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 destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
