Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
