Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors 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 infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
