Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
