Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
