Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
