Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
