Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
