Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
