Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
