Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
