Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's sky: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
