Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
