Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the world's air: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
