Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's sky: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
