Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
