Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
