Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
