Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
