Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
