Things are falling apart in the last installment 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 weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
