Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
