Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
