Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
