Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
