Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
