Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – 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 youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
