Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the