Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
