Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
