Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
