Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
