Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. One such window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
