Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
