Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
