Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
