Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
