Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
