Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
