Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
