Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
