Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
