Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
