Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the