Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations 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 field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
