Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
