Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
