Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
