Tings 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 intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, creativity 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 set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
