Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress independence of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
